I am worth 4 dollars

Following the ongoing "Hot" Web 2.0 topic of "commercializing the Web 2.0", this interesting article pops up over @ ZDNet.

If you haven't been following this, let me quickly put you up to date. Jason Calacanis of Netscape and Weblogs Inc. fame came out and said that he was willing to pay Digg's top users $1000 dollars if they started to submit their stories over and exclusively on Netscape.com (which as it is right now works and looks very similar to Digg.com). Basically Jason is willing to pay these "Top-Users" to switch over to Netscape.com and in the process, he hopes at least, get some much wanted traffic and good content.

Going back to ZDNet's article, the article exposes the great popularity and revenues today's top Web 2.0 sites like Digg and Myspace are getting:

While traffic and usage numbers have grown at Web 2.0 properties, the very low ratio of contributing users to non-contributing users has not evolved.

From YouTube, to Digg, to MySpace, Social Web stars are touting enormous traffic and usage metrics.

The traffic overwhelmingly involves non-contributing, and non-paying, users, however, and the usage is not well monetized.

Additionally, the Web 2.0 leaders in traffic and usage are incurring greater infrastructure costs to support the growing non-paying users, and under-monetized usage.

The article concludes that your average user of these site is actually worth 2 doillars. By average user I mean nothing related to the "Top Users" list, which means the type of guy that Jason isn't interested in. Myself been holder of a Digg as well as MySpace account *sighs* can say I am worth 4 dollars. Interesting to say the least..

About this entry

Y'know, Sebastian, I've often wondered how these sites have been able to make any real money, besides all the ads they run. I know now most of these free sites have been bought out and/or acquired by the big boys such as Google. The main thing I wonder is exactly when I can expect to start being charged for my "wonderful" Myspace account.

A user service that I use that is kinda like MySpace, but isn't free is ChatFinder. It boasts some good features, especially for Mac users, but it's emphasis is meeting people thru IM and vidchat... not just making "friends" like MySpace. Yes, there's a fee attached. However, they charge because they don't want just anyone using their service and becoming like MySpace is now. Check it out sometime, if you want. My account there is http://www.chatfinder.com/info.php?userid=7557311

Y'know, Sebastian, I've often wondered how these sites have been able to make any real money, besides all the ads they run. I know now most of these free sites have been bought out and/or acquired by the big boys such as Google. The main thing I wonder is exactly when I can expect to start being charged for my "wonderful" Myspace account.

A user service that I use that is kinda like MySpace, but isn't free is ChatFinder. It boasts some good features, especially for Mac users, but it's emphasis is meeting people thru IM and vidchat... not just making "friends" like MySpace. Yes, there's a fee attached. However, they charge because they don't want just anyone using their service and becoming like MySpace is now. Check it out sometime, if you want. My account there is http://www.chatfinder.com/info.php?userid=7557311